The present invention relates to a method and device for forming a wiring harness comprising a plurality of conductors and connectors, said connectors being each provided with coupling positions for conductor ends and occupying given geographic positions, whereas each conductor follows a path also predetermined inside said wiring harness to connect a coupling position of one connector to a coupling position of another connector, the paths of said conductors having common portions along which said conductors are bound together to form bundles.
The invention applies more particularly, although not exclusively, to the formation of wiring harnesses for aircraft and particularly for helicopters, in which said wiring harnesses connecting together the numerous pieces of electric and electronic equipment required for piloting said aircraft and for executing the different missions which they must carry out, are very complex and varied.
Before installing said wiring harnesses, for example in an aircraft which they are to equip, it is necessary to shape said harnesses, in accordance with the internal arrangement of the aircraft, on long tables (up to 10 meters or so in length), each conductor extending on the table between specific input and output positions, following a predetermined path.
At the present time, the paths of the different conductors forming the wiring harness are represented graphically on a sheet of paper disposed on the table, under a transparent plate formed with a plurality of holes for receiving guide pins for maintaining the conductors temporarily in position along their path.
For each conductor to be positioned, the operator must first of all identify it then, by means of technical documentation, search among the plurality of paths for the one which corresponds to the conductor he has just identified. The operator may then position the conductor following the plot of its path, and holding it there by means of guide pins disposed, by the operator, in appropriate positions along the path. The operator must of course begin this set of operations again for each conductor of the harness.
Such work is obviously fastidious and errors are practically inevitable, considering both the length of the tables and the fact that the formation of such harnesses may use several hundred conductors. Even though a "skeleton" of the harness is represented on the table, the operator finds himself in fact in front of a veritable "jumble" of interlaced conductors which are difficult to control.
The object of the present invention is to overcome these drawbacks, and provides a method and device for automatically forming such wiring harnesses.